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8/13/19

Complexity Should Be Your Excuse For Inaction

The Quiet Temple “Shades of Gemini”

The Quiet Temple draw on a lot of psychedelic, jazz, and film music influences but my major reference point for this particular song is Herbie Hancock’s Sextant record from 1973. Hancock’s songs are little more sophisticated but there’s a similar sort of sinister cosmic funk feeling to the music, and a sort of lurch to the groove that makes the entire composition seem tilted or drunken. “Shades of Gemini” leans more on psychedelic rock as it moves towards its climax, building to a heavy crescendo that delivers a musical payoff a bit closer to the realm of Godspeed You Black Emperor.

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8/12/19

The Elephant In Every Room

Alessia Cara “Rooting for You”

“Rooting for You” comes from a remarkably healthy place, in emotional terms: Smart enough to know when it’s time to cut a toxic friend out of one’s life, but kind and generous enough to not be especially angry or dramatic about it. Alessia Cara sings no-nonsense lyrics with a lot of warmth, and focuses on a feeling of disappointment when her friend’s issues get in the way of honest communication. The tune has a sunny lightness to it and nods in the direction of a ska groove without fully committing to the genre. The song doesn’t fit into any particular genre, really – it’s that sort of mutt pop that’s a bit of everything and produced with a gloss that makes it difficult to peg down to a particular year. This could be 1998, it could be 2003, it could be 2008, it could be any time since then. As such, it gets to have a vaguely nostalgic feeling about it without recalling any time in particular or feeling at all dated.

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8/8/19

She’s Happy Like My Birthday

Metronomy “Salted Caramel Ice Cream”

“Salted Caramel Ice Cream” is a crush song, but it’s specifically about being into someone who is just a bit out of your league. She’s fancy, she’s a bit posh. She’s aspirational. Joseph Mount sings the song with a cheeky tone – he’s a bit breathy in a campy way, but not enough to make his lust a joke. (Though he’s certainly laughing at himself there.) The song is as light and bubbly as the Perrier he references at the start, and his vocal spikes the sweetness of it all with a salty kick of self-awareness, just like the treat that gives the song its name. It’s so fun and flirty that you can sort of miss that for a good portion of the song he’s stressing out about making eye contact with her and screwing it all up.

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8/7/19

Figure It Out

Battles featuring Sal Principato “Titanium 2 Step”

The best Battles songs seem exaggerated and surreal, pushing commonplace sounds like drum hits and guitar strums to odd extremes that make you wonder if a human could really play what you’ve just heard. “Titanium 2 Step” does this trick mainly in a bit that sounds like the end of a riff has been suddenly and drastically pitched up before returning to the base tempo. There’s also a cartoonish springiness to the track, like it’s this big bouncy castle of chords and beats that Liquid Liquid vocalist Sal Principato is bopping around in, shouting with incoherent glee the whole time. What a weird and joyful song.

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8/6/19

Isn’t This Fun?

Jarina De Marco “Identity Crisis”

“Identity Crisis” is an ALL CAPS song – bold and bright and loud and so overbearingly catchy that it might drive you a little crazy. There’s no holding back here, it’s all maximalist oomph and pizzazz, and that carries over to its extremely colorful and slyly political music video. The music needs to be this hyper and saturated to match the character and intensity Jarina De Marco brings to the table. She’s all flavor and zero timidity, and her lyrics approach the complexity of colorism within Latinx culture, particularly in her native Dominican Rebublic, with an appropriate blend of anger and pointed irony in order to put a spotlight on a poisonous absurdity. The lyrics and video lean hard on parody, but the song goes way too hard to be either a joke or get too serious.

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8/4/19

The Skyline Askew

The New Pornographers “Falling Down the Stairs of Your Smile”

“Falling Down the Stairs of Your Smile” relies more on groove and atmosphere than most New Pornographers songs, and places John Collins’ bass – an easily overlooked element of the band – at the foreground of the arrangement. It works well in gently shifting the listener’s expectations of their music going into their eighth record but also establishes a feel of just-off destabilization that carries through the entire song and its lyrical themes. Carl Newman positions this as a sort of love song, but eliminates all traces of sentimentality and affection in his words and vocal inflections. The song starts with him making a pointed clarification – “you look just like a starmaker / that is NOT like a star” – and the rest of the lines signal calculation, cynicism, and mistrust. The chorus still has a slight love buzz to it as Kathryn Calder sings about a disorienting feeling that wipes out balance and reasonable interpretations of events. You can’t help but be passively manipulated by this person. In the words of another great song, it’s “fate up against your will.”

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8/1/19

Under The Freeway Overpasses

Haim “Summer Girl”

“Summer Girl” sounds a bit like Haim trying to figure out how to play Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” but ending up somewhere else entirely. The feeling of it is extremely LA in the way Reed’s song is extremely NYC – a little more slack to the rhythm, a lot more implied space and sunlight in the mix. It’s also a lot more hopeful than cynical, as Danielle Haim wrote this an expression of love and empathy for her partner Ariel Rechtshaid when he was being treated for cancer. A lot of the lyrics are just her observing him in his lowest moments of fear and anxiety, and doing her best to be strong and selfless. She references Joni Mitchell at one point, calling back to her old line “laughter and crying, you know it’s the same release,” but putting it into a new context where it’s no longer coming from a place of isolation and insecurity. The saxophone part, written by Rostam Batmanglij, adds to the atmosphere without dipping into kitsch or pushing the song too far into retro pastiche. As much as the song is indebted to the past, it’s firmly present in the moment and focused on its message of unconditional love.

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7/30/19

Hold Your Flashlight Up

Pieces of A Man “Nothing to Lose”

“Nothing to Lose” is a gospel pop song with a slightly tilted arrangement – not enough that it disrupts the grace and beauty of the harmonies or subverts the gospel-ness of the music, but in the way the electronic production and vaguely trap-ish drum programming shift expectations in subtle ways. It’s a gorgeous piece of music from the chord progression on up to the particular vocal inflections of the singers, which shift from joyous moments of unity to smaller, more personal declarations of love and faith. There’s an odd sort of gravity to this song – it feels so rooted to the earth, but it some moments the music seems to levitate.

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7/29/19

Velvet Chains

Goldroom featuring Mereki “You’re Incredible”

Goldroom’s track is built around a repeated groove of what sounds like a chopped up sample of mallet percussion – maybe a marimba? It sounds very clear and “live” but just off enough to feel uncanny, so the metallic clangs sound lovely enough to have a lovely, luxurious feeling but also communicate a slight unease. Mereki’s vocal doesn’t get too deep into lyrical details. She sketches out a scene of being at a show and watching a performer with awe and affection, but wisely keeps things focused on a gorgeous repeated vocal hook: “I think you’re incredible, oh oh.” She sounds like someone in love with someone who isn’t fully real, someone who is more beautiful and idealized because you can’t get up close to them. Goldroom deepens the sound of the track with a painterly sort of guitar noise and beachy synth tones, but never takes focus off that mesmerizing percussive chord vamp. If you let it go for just a moment it would break the spell.

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7/28/19

It’s America, Right?

Chance the Rapper featuring DaBaby and MadeinTYO “Hot Shower”

A lot of Chance the Rapper’s fourth record – actually his debut album if you ask him, but that’s just a discography combover if you ask me – is heavy and soulful, signaling maturity and stability. But “Hot Shower,” the record’s standout track, is a total goof that gives him space to be silly and extra playful with his always expressive voice. The song owes a lot to the cadences of Valee and Jeremih’s hit “Womp Womp” from last year, but the tone is different – less hypnotic and aloof, and way more overtly comedic as Chance shouts out DUDE and NUDES with cartoonish over-emphasis in the second verse. MadeinTYO’s verse is significantly more chill, but it’s just a palette cleanser before getting to DaBaby’s verse, which is dazzles with low-key confidence as it tips from bragging about cars to a section about going to court that’s both defiant of and paranoid about the racist legal system.

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7/26/19

We’re Done With Music

Shura “The Stage”

“The Stage” is about the liminal time just before the tension between two people tips over into physical romance, and in this case the backdrop of the scene is a concert, making the title both literal and figurative. Shura sings with a flirty soulfulness that doesn’t totally obscure her nerves, and the music does about the same thing in the way it’s smooth, sexy groove is nonetheless built around a vamp that suggests a quickening pulse and anticipation. The main thing here is the sweetness of it all – the delicate bounce and sway of the chords, and the way Shura’s lyrics focus on little romantic details and sentiments like “I can’t see the stage because I’m looking at you.”

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7/25/19

Is It Love Or Entertainment

Ciara “Thinkin’ About You”

“Thinkin’ ‘Bout You” sounds like it was made in defiance of all current pop trends in favor of thin, dreary melodies and hollow, minimalist arrangements, and in celebration of the sort of up-tempo, cheerful pop that could go much further in the ’80s and ’00s. It’s proudly out of step, and as such, feels more like it’s aiming for the future than looking towards the past. There aren’t that many specific musical similarities, but this song reminds me a lot of “How Do I Know” by Whitney Houston in both energy and sentiment – it’s a perky song about falling in love but dealing with all the anxieties and insecurities that go along with making yourself vulnerable and setting up expectations for what you’d like to happen. Ciara’s voice can’t help but convey optimism and joy in this song, so even the most neurotic lines land in a way that makes it seem more “butterflies” than “nervous wreck.”

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7/24/19

The Lifestyle For Free

Blood Orange featuring Tinashe “Tuesday Feeling (Choose to Stay)”

“Tuesday Feeling” is built around a strumming guitar part that seems to sway gently, suggesting a carefree chill vibe that’s at odds with the anxious and agitated state of mind expressed in the lyrics. The odd balance of neuroses and tranquil vibes carry through the song, though the song shifts out of its strummy mode for a bridge section built around keyboard chords that sound even more relaxed and gentle. Devonté Hynes sells the confusion and angst of the lyrics in his vocal without totally undermining the general feeling of the track, and he sounds particularly good in contrast with Tinashe’s vocal, which sound considerably more warm and grounded.

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7/21/19

Every Single Syllable

Banks “Sawzall”

“Sawzall” is a surprisingly coherent song for something that moves between four totally distinct sections with only Banks’ vocal melody tying it all together. Some motifs do return in the finale, but the general feeling here is of someone adrift in guilt and regret as they reflect on a lot of red flags they’d ignored in a relationship with someone with serious mental illness. Banks performs with both vulnerability and sensitivity – there’s some degree of self-flagellation, but the emphasis is placed on empathy for this other person who’s in even worse pain than she is. The lateral drift of the arrangement simulates being lost in thought, but when the opening piano motif returns it sounds like she’s reconnecting with a feeling rather than just looping around for another cycle.

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7/19/19

That Splash

Ann Marie featuring Jeremih “Drip”

The most immediately striking thing about “Drip” is that slow metronomic two-note motif that opens the song and carries through it like a literal drip from a faucet. The particular metallic tone is quite lovely, and the steady hypnotic quality of it contrasts nicely with Ann Marie and Jeremih’s far more sophisticated melodies, which seem to tangle around the center of it like vines climbing up a pole. This is an EXTREMELY horny and explicit song – it really is nothing more than two people singing about wanting to fuck each other – and while that sort of thing is fairly common now, there’s a gravity and resonance to this track that makes it all feel quite vivid, intimate, and romantically sincere.

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7/18/19

We Made It To The Canyon

Erin Durant “Good Ol’ Night”

“Good Ol’ Night” somewhat resembles Joanna Newsom’s classic “Good Intentions Paving Company” in both tone and style, as Erin Durant sings a lovely, delicate melody around low-key piano and percussion that’s so light and casual that it sounds as though it could be entirely improvised. This is high praise – I believe that particular Newsom song to be her very best, and it’s the kind of song that makes me wish there were more like it. Durant has a similar gift for evocative lyrics and sets a very vivid scene in old bars, casinos, cities, rivers, deserts, and the open road. The song is something of a travelogue and moves in tangents, but the emphasis is always on Durant’s voice and her charting a deep connection between two people as they move closer and further away from each other.

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7/17/19

Asleep On A Sunbeam

Ol’ Burger Beats “Come Sunday”

Ol’ Burger Beats makes instrumental hip-hop that calls back to a mid-to-late ‘90s “turntablism” aesthetic – think DJ Shadow or DJ Premier, or a bit later, J Dilla – but pushes further into the realm of jazz. The majority of songs on the Norwegian producer’s new record Daybreaks sound like mellow keyboard-led jazz knocked slightly off balance or out of phase. Familiar sounds, like smooth sax leads, float in but abruptly cut out like a thought that’s suddenly interrupted by nothing in particular. Most of the elements and vocal fragments seem as though they’re presented as quotes and the music has an overall loose and airy feel, but still, it all sounds rather organic and grounded.

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7/16/19

When The Feeling’s So Lovely

Brijean “Show and Tell”

I did not realize until I’d heard this song several times that Brijean Murphy, the primary performer and namesake of this project, is mostly a percussionist. But that certainly makes sense of this music, which is very much built around rhythm in terms of both structure and texture. “Show and Tell” is a tropical disco tune driven largely by Murphy’s congas. The percussion is busy but there’s no clutter in the arrangement – it all feels loose and airy, and the polyrhythms are more about signaling movement than keeping you consciously aware of the beat. The textural emphasis is more on Murphy’s breathy voice as she entices you to relax and enjoy the feeling, and on the synth melodies that seem to crisscross the track like laser light effects.

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7/15/19

Looking For A Fight

Grace Ives “Mansion”

“Mansion” is one of those songs that arrives at entirely fresh aesthetic territory by building a bridge between two sounds no one had bothered to connect before – in this case, the twitchy minimalist synth-punk of Le Tigre and the throbbing disco sensuality of Donna Summer. Grace Ives’ arrangement is sparse but carefully calibrated so moments of tension and release overlap in a way that keeps the overall feeling ambiguous and the cathartic bits from feeling obviously signaled. Ives’ voice is terrific too, shifting between a spunky defiance in the verses to a gorgeous wordless moan in the refrain that resembles the elegant timbre of Alison Goldfrapp.

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7/11/19

Because We’re Star

EXID “We Are…”

Half the sounds in “We Are” seem like they’ve been slightly smudged or blotted out, as if the purely digital tones have been altered by physical conditions. It gives the song a soft, hazy sound – very summery, but the part of summer where the air feels heavy and the sun is more glare than shine. The underlying groove feels right for this atmosphere. It’s a very ‘90s sort of R&B/rap hybrid that is only slightly updated to sound contemporary, and there’s enough English being sung that it can mostly pass for a lost TLC song that just happened to be mostly performed in Korean.

Buy it from Amazon.

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